Color E Ink coming at the end of the year

Color is coming to E Ink displays at the end of this year or the beginning of …

In an interview with Xconomy.com, the new head of E Ink talks about the company's plans to launch color displays at the end of this year. T.H. Peng, executive vice president of E Ink's parent company, Prime View International, admitted to Xconomy that in terms of quality color E Ink won't be ready to go head-to-head with LCD anytime soon.

"Our color quality will not be as good as LCD, initially," Peng told Xconomy. "But we have already received very encouraging signs from a few customers that they want to launch our color e-paper product by the end of this year or the beginning of 2011."

Peng went on to insist that E Ink's color capabilities compare favorably with that of newsprint—a bar that Peng himself admits is substantially lower than that of glossy magazines.

I actually got a glimpse of a color E Ink prototype at this past CES, and I will admit that I wasn't too impressed. Color saturation and contrast were very low, and it was fairly hard to tell the different colors apart. But the Skiff spokesperson who had the demo mentioned that it represented only one of a number of possible methods for bringing color to E Ink, and this fits with what Peng says in the interview.

Right now, E Ink is staffing up in R&D and is exploring a range of options for bringing color to E Ink screens. It's likely that the company will iterate through a number of approaches in the coming years as it pursues its goal of getting E Ink closer to full-color printing.

While E Ink explores its color options, competing approaches aren't standing still. I didn't care for the Mirasol demo that I saw at Qualcomm's CES booth, but the company claims that it has a newer, much improved version of the MEMs-based technology that looks significantly better. I was supposed to get a demo of the new Mirasol tech last week, but I wasn't able to go. We've rescheduled, though, so look for a report next month.

A lot of scientific literature comes with nice color photos now too... I would love a color e-reader so I can keep more on top of research. I've tried reading on a Kinde2, but the text is tiny. A color e-book reader the size of a piece of paper would be excellent. One you can take notes on and transfer them to a computer, search the notes and keep tabs on what you've read.

A lot of scientific literature comes with nice color photos now too... I would love a color e-reader so I can keep more on top of research. I've tried reading on a Kinde2, but the text is tiny. A color e-book reader the size of a piece of paper would be excellent. One you can take notes on and transfer them to a computer, search the notes and keep tabs on what you've read. I want too much.

I don't think you ask too much. Leapfrog already has a pen that can read what you write and send it to a computer. I see no reason why this technology couldn't be blended with e-ink tech.

Right, a lot of people are waiting for a great digital comic book reader.

I know I am.

Color is my jumping on point, once the inevitable high price drops. Love the concept, love the implementations, but I need color to be worth it. I'd also like to see more magazines on board, kinda silly to continue to recieve SciAm and NatGeo in paper nowadays.

I'd far rather see manufacturers working on increasing the resolution than worry about colour. Unfortunately colour is the shiny fluff that the market wants.

The 166dpi of current eInk readers is no better than newsprint. It's tolerable, but needs to go up by 50% for the text to start looking as sharp as a decently-printed page. Current approaches to add colour on cell-based displays just drop the resolution by half since the monochrome information is locked to the same bandwidth as the colour. The net result is that images, where resolution is more important than it is for text, end up looking far worse than newsprint, even if you discount the saturation issues.

Do you really want to take a gorgeously-painted comic by Dave McKean and look at it on a device that can only do 45 lines per inch? That's nuts.

Geek ? why yes I am. If I can get my game library portable I will be a happy man.

IAWTC. I love(d) gaming but did not have the space to store more than a couple of books after moving to the East Coast. I would be highly stoked to have a plus-sized nook or Kindle DX with 20 or so game books loaded up.

I have a Nook and love it. However, I got it (essentially) for free, as I had a bunch of giftcards from my credit card rewards program, so the price was never really an issue for me.

That being said, once a *good* color version comes out that can compete with magazines on clarity/contrast/color (someone want to come up with a 4th 'c' word so we can have the diamond rule for color eInk?), I'll be right in line for that one. Throwing two magazines a month into the recycle bin depresses me. Once that comes out, considering the Nook runs on Android and has already been rooted, I can just play with that and see what I can dev for it.

Text is monochrome. But many books are not - textbooks, books with photos/color plates, etc. would benefit from color e-ink - instead of the monochrome renderings currently available on ereaders.

But color e-ink isn't just for books - it's for magazines (primarily, I would presume) and, to a lesser extent, newspapers.

It looks like my first-generation Kindle is going to (fingers crossed) last until about the time color ereaders come out. So, I may end up being an early-adapter of one of the new devices.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for my PRS-505 - my treatment of the battery has been subpar, and its ability to hold a charge has suffered. I'm hoping I can replace the battery myself, but if that fails, I'll have to decide whether to try and hold out for the new shiny or not.

Except textbooks. And comic books. And various other books of a technical nature.

Indeed, everything except literature is in color.

I wouldn't want to read comic books on my reader even if it were in colour (or they were monochrome). It's too small, but I wouldn't want it to be big enough for comics because then it wouldn't fit in a jacket pocket. The same would be true for many textbooks/technical books.

I imagine we'll see several classes of readers, with many people owning multiple. I'm sure we'll also see books move away from the static page size as ebooks eclipse the printed variety. If it kills the disruptive sidebar, I'll be overjoyed.

I don't see magazines returning. People in their thirties remember them, but for anyone else they're as relevant as player pianos. Short form content works better on the web anyway.

Forget e-readers I want color e-ink in a 23" monitor. and resolution, contrast, and saturation be damned (to a point of course). None that matters when you feel like you're gonna puke from the eye strain of staring at what is essentially a giant light bulb for 10 hours a day trying to read and distinguish text that is 1/4" tall at best.. Bring it! I'll buy.

A lot of scientific literature comes with nice color photos now too... I would love a color e-reader so I can keep more on top of research. I've tried reading on a Kinde2, but the text is tiny. A color e-book reader the size of a piece of paper would be excellent. One you can take notes on and transfer them to a computer, search the notes and keep tabs on what you've read.

I want too much.

This is what I want too. I want it easy on the eyes so I can concentrate on the content and colour is a must for different graphs and diagrams. Having all articles relevant to my research + few choice textbooks in an easy to read and easy to carry around format would be great.

I'm still waiting for a reader with a good browser built into it. I'm happy buying my books hardcover because I keep them, but most web content I'll read once then will probably never see it again. It would probably give me less eye strain if I could use that for alot of things.

Somewhat off topic, I'm kinda surprised that I haven't heard about anyone selling an eInk USB display to be attached to computers. It would think that if it wasn't too expensive then it might be useful for at work to keep an eye on your inbox, or some reference document that you're using. Could unplug it and then take it to a meeting so that all your notes are in front of you.

I'd far rather see manufacturers working on increasing the resolution than worry about colour. Unfortunately colour is the shiny fluff that the market wants.

The 166dpi of current eInk readers is no better than newsprint. It's tolerable, but needs to go up by 50% for the text to start looking as sharp as a decently-printed page. Current approaches to add colour on cell-based displays just drop the resolution by half since the monochrome information is locked to the same bandwidth as the colour. The net result is that images, where resolution is more important than it is for text, end up looking far worse than newsprint, even if you discount the saturation issues.

Do you really want to take a gorgeously-painted comic by Dave McKean and look at it on a device that can only do 45 lines per inch? That's nuts.

This from the site that constantly (and erroneously) contends "DVD is good enough," even though it's 1/6th the resolution of Blu-ray. Not to mention the reduced color palette of DVD.

I have the original Sony Reader, and for text it actually looks great. It certainly isn't equal in smoothness to a regular book, but it never bothers me. I imagine when a higher DPI Reader comes out, I will go back to my original and say "WTF was I thinking!?!"

Right, a lot of people are waiting for a great digital comic book reader.

I know I am. Color is my jumping on point, once the inevitable high price drops. Love the concept, love the implementations, but I need color to be worth it. I'd also like to see more magazines on board, kinda silly to continue to recieve SciAm and NatGeo in paper nowadays.

I'm out of the "e-reader" market until I can read it comfortably in bed with the light off. My 640x480 resolution phone does just fine until they get some sort of non-obtrusive and pleasant looking built-in lighting scheme.

Luck IThat being said, once a *good* color version comes out that can compete with magazines on clarity/contrast/color (someone want to come up with a 4th 'c' word so we can have the diamond rule for color eInk?),

I'm out of the "e-reader" market until I can read it comfortably in bed with the light off. My 640x480 resolution phone does just fine until they get some sort of non-obtrusive and pleasant looking built-in lighting scheme.

With Notion Ink reflective screen machine available now, I'm failing to see E-Ink's advantage any longer.

I love the original B&W implementation on the OLPC, and the videos I've seen of the color modern version are outstanding.

The Adam is not available yet.

Also, the price is likely to be significantly greater than e-ink (and far higher than the SiPix screens which are due out shortly - which can also do sub-screen updating). Then there's the issue of battery life (which will be lower), weight (higher), a requirement for glass backing at a time when the next generation of e-ink devices will be plastic backed and there are apparently also some contrast and reflectivity issues (which may now be solved, but they've delayed it significantly)).